Various techniques may be used to heat tissue to perform therapy or ablate tissue. In particular, high intensity focused ultrasound is used for sonicating or treating a region of tissue within a subject with high intensity focused ultrasound. The high intensity focused ultrasound can be used for heating a region within the subject, it can be used for rupturing tiny capsules of a drug and activating the drug, it can be used for ablating tissue, and at higher powers cavitation can be used to destroy regions within the subject. High intensity focused ultrasound is focused into a region of the subject using a transducer. Very often the transducers have multiple elements and by controlling the phase and/or amplitude of the individual elements the focus of the ultrasound within the subject can be adjusted to a certain degree.
When a region of a subject is sonicated, detailed information about the anatomy or internal structure of the subject is beneficial. As a result sonication of the subject is typically guided using a medical imaging modality. An example of such a medical imaging modality is magnetic resonance imaging.